The Porsche 917K's flat-12 should be in everything

In April 1968, the Commission Sportive Internationale, the forerunner of the FIA, made the call that the minimum production figure to compete in the sport category of the International Championship of Makes, which became the World Sportscar Championship and eventually the World Endurance Championship, would go from 50 road-going examples to 25. In July of that year, Porsche started building the 917 to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Porsche was visited by inspectors soon after, but only three cars had been built. Seven sets of parts were present and 18 more cars were being assembled. "Still not enough," said the CSI. Finally in April 1969, CSI checked off 25 gleaming examples stacked outside the Porsche factory and cleared the 917 to race.

The Porsche 917 used two of the company's 2.25-liter flat-six engines to make one kick-ass flat-12 with dual overhead camshafts, twin spark plugs per cylinder and twin distributors. To keep the car compact, the driver was moved so far forward that his feet were beyond the front axle.

The first version featured a long tail but had handling problems at speed with significant rear lift. It was JW Automotive Engineering Ltd. that did the experimenting and found that a shorter tail was key. Wyer’s engineer noticed that the bodywork had a bunch of dead gnats on it, but the tail was clean. That meant the air was not flowing over it properly. An upswept tail was added, in the pits, with aluminum sheets, and the 917 became the 917K, K for kurzheck or "short tail."

A version of the 917K won in 1970 with Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood at the wheel for Porsche KG Salzburg and again in 1971 (Helmut Marko, Gijs van Lennep) for the Martini Racing Team. Sadly, creator and favored team JW Automotive never put an overall win in the books with the 917.

All of that is to say, have you ever seen a 917 in action, besides in “Le Mans” or at Rennsport? We haven’t either, until today. YouTube channel 19Bozzy92 got a chance to see a 917 do its thing at Monza during a historic event, and recorded the whole thing in super-high definition. Video on-track starts at 3 minutes, 39 seconds, but check out the warmup too.

Also, imagine 25 of these monsters ready for street duty!

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

This commenting section is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page. You may be able to find more information on their web site.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Autoweek participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.